Disciples Peace Fellowship (DPF) condemns the United States and Israel's "massive and ongoing operation" with Iran. We continue to proclaim that, even as God seeks to break the weapons of war (Psalm 76:3), the peace that God brings is one not accomplished through military domination or overwhelming force John 14:27). We lament the lives that have been deemed disposable by those who act with militaristic opportunism, including the many children who were killed when a missile strike hit an elementary girls school in Minab, Iran. The late Biblical Scholar Walter Wink reminds us, "Redemptive violence gives way to violence as an end in itself. It is no longer a religion that uses violence in the pursuit of order and salvation, but one in which violence has become an aphrodisiac... a substitute for relationships.”
God of Peace,
You who break the weapons of war and refuse the logic of domination, grieve with us the violence we justify and the harm we unleash - and turn our hearts again toward your way of healing, restoration, and wholeness.
Give us courage to seek peace when it is not easy, to speak when silence feels safer, and to call for ceasefire, for justice, and for lives to be protected so that your peace, not made by force but by love, might take root among US. Amen.